‘Gentlemen, from now on there will be no deputies. Good morning’. This was the controversial statement that triggered the formation of the London Symphony Orchestra.
At the turn of the 20th century, London’s music centre was the Queen’s Hall, located in the heart of the West End in Langham Place. Opened in 1893, it was run by musical entrepreneur Robert Newman who, together with the young, up-and-coming conductor Henry Wood, founded the Proms concerts. But a concert needs musicians, and a new orchestra was formed to present the Proms series: the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. And so it was that in August 1895 the Queen’s Hall Promenade concert season was born!
However, although they were able to offer steady work to the orchestra’s players, Wood and Newman simply could not pay as much as London’s music halls and opera houses. It was the norm for players to take up a more lucrative engagement should it be offered, and when that did happen, the player would send along a ‘deputy’ to take their place in the Queen’s Hall Orchestra. This meant that Wood was often faced with a sea of faces he didn’t know at rehearsals, and sometimes even at the concerts themselves! Quite rightly, he and Newman decided that this practice had to stop, as it was compromising their artistic standards. So, in early 1904, Newman issued his ultimatum – ‘Gentlemen, from now on there will be no deputies. Good morning.’ It did not go down well! The majority of the players were aghast at losing their freelance status and their enhanced income.
The story goes that a plan was hatched on a train to Manchester by four ringleaders: Adolf Borsdorf, Henri van der Meerschen, Thomas Busby and John Solomon – all brass players. They would form an orchestra of their own which would be run as a co-operative, a ‘Musical Republic’, where the players would choose the conductors and not the other way around.
The four founding Members of the LSO, 1904
A meeting was convened where Busby laid out their ambitious plan and, consequently, 45 members of the Queen’s Hall Orchestra resigned to join the new London Symphony Orchestra. Busby became the Orchestra’s first Managing Director and remained in that post for 20 years. The renowned and respected conductor, Hans Richter, was working with the Hallé in Manchester at the time. He was persuaded by his friend Borsdorf to conduct the LSO’s first concert and to become its first Principal Conductor.
In time, it became clear that Wood and Newman had been right, and some years later the deputy system came to an end. Ironic, as it was, of course, the original raison d’etre of the new orchestra. Many years later John Solomon wrote to Wood to explain that one of the reasons for their split was that the players had feared he would become famous and be snapped up by some foreign orchestra and as a result, the Queen’s Hall Orchestra would be left high and dry.
The First Concert
On 9 June 1904, the LSO held their inaugural concert at the Queen’s Hall with Wood and Newman in the audience. As so many of the players had engagements at the Opera House in the evening, this inaugural event had to be held in the afternoon. Nevertheless, it was a great success and the critics hailed the new orchestra as one of the best in Europe!
The programme for that first concert included works by Richard Wagner, Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Liszt, as well as Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No 5. The programme has been repeated at several anniversary concerts over the years, and excerpts from some of these pieces were played at the LSO’s Centenary Concert at the Barbican in 2004.
Flyer for the LSO's inaugural concert, 9 June 1904
Hans Richter, the first LSO Principal Conductor, 1904–11
The volume of tone was magnificent, and the effect of the performance under Dr Richter was truly memorable … the large audience applauded the orchestra with the utmost enthusiasm.
The Times, June 1904
The first series LSO concerts took place starting in October 1904. Until then, it was the norm in England for ensembles to have a resident conductor, but the fledgling LSO took the opportunity to invite some of the world’s greatest conductors to join them, including, in those early years, Frederick Cowen, Arthur Nikisch, Fritz Steinbach, Edouard Colonne, Sir Charles Villiers Stanford and Sir Edward Elgar.
Header image: the first known photo of the LSO at the Queen’s Hall, June 1904
